Seemingly so. Maybe I missed something in TFA, or it wasn't complete, but how did the researchers account for terrain obstacles. It's one thing to just go in a straight line from point a to point b. That task becomes much more difficult when you have rivers, lakes, mountains, etc. to contend with.

It looked like the petri-dish-USA lacked mountains or the great lakes. Let's be honest: anyone could figure out an efficient highway system if the entire USA was basically Nebraska.